Ethics of democracy Volume 3; a series of optimistic essays on the natural laws of human society - Louis Freeland Post, Paperback

• Release Date   5/21/2012
• ISBN-13   9781236392572 | 978-1-236-39257-2
• ISBN   1236392574 | 1-236-39257-4
• Format   Paperback
• Author(s)   Louis Freeland Post
• This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1916 Excerpt: ...a conflict, not of each to give much for little, as in "altruistic" competition, but of each to give little for much. But if all were free the result of this competition would be exactly like that of "altruistic" competition. The competitive pressure being equal on all sides, it also would produce an equilibrium at the point of fair exchange. In the result, however, this difference would appear: Whereas selfish traders could disturb the equilibrium of "altruistic" competition, they could not disturb that of "egoistic" competition. The persistent equal pressure of self-interest in all directions would force them to make fair bargains. The better it is understood, the clearer it will be seen that "egoistic" competition is a natural law for compelling the selfish to be fair and the unrighteous to be just. And it rests upon an immutable principle, namely, that every man must live his life from within outward. No one can live from others to himself. He must live from himself to others. Selfhood is the base line of all social triangulation. The principle finds its highest expression in the golden rule: "Whatsoever ye would that others should do to you, do ye even so to them." This is a law of justice, not of altruism. It would be impossible to give it altruistic expression. The law of justice demands, what, in economics, laws of human nature enforce, that each shall look out upon all his brethren as from the center of a circle. He knows his own sensations. he cannot know theirs. To be just, therefore, he must do to them as he would have them do to him. It is the only way. And when men engage in interchanging their labor or its products for mutual satisfaction, each must fall back upon his own sensations ...